


Restless Soul, Lie Down

by s1lverwren



Series: 12 days of christmas [6]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Drug Abuse, Fix-It, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, how they should have dealt with reid's drug addiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:27:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27929014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/s1lverwren/pseuds/s1lverwren
Summary: Hotch is tired of acting like there isn't a problem when there very clearly is.
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner & Spencer Reid
Series: 12 days of christmas [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2045071
Comments: 2
Kudos: 66





	Restless Soul, Lie Down

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr saw it first. title comes from the song "blood" by the middle east

It was a fitting day- dark and dreary, rain pouring down as if to drown the world. The droplets splattered the windows, and the clouds blocked out the stars that would normally dot the night sky. It was quiet, too, the normal sound of people hard at work long gone. Two figures remained in the office, a tall, pale, and wiry one and a dark, serious, and concentrated one. **  
**

Hotch looked out his office window and saw Reid still sitting at his desk, hunched over with his head in his hands. Sparing a quick glance at the clock hanging on his wall, he noted the time far too late for even Reid to be there. He abandoned the report he had been working on and walked out into the bullpen. 

His footsteps were heavy as he descended the stairs, but the normally over-observant Reid took no notice. Hotch grabbed Emily’s chair and rolled it over so he sat in front of Spencer. It was only then that the younger man noticed his presence. 

“Hotch,” Spencer breathed, eyes darting wildly, “what are you doing here?”

Hotch leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. “Filling out reports. Why are you here?”

He received a light shrug as his answer. Hotch took in Reid’s disheveled state. His desk was in complete disorder; pencils were scattered, notes with indecipherable words scribbled onto them were placed haphazardly, and the essence of Reid was just gone. His normally ironed clothes were crumpled. It didn’t escape Hotch that they were the same ones from the day before. 

His physical appearance was almost worse. Reid’s eyes were sunk into his sockets, and dark circles sat beneath him. He hadn’t slept properly in weeks, and it was evident. His hair was a mess of brown hair, and it was clear that it as well hadn’t been cared for in a long time.

Hotch knew exactly what was happening. 

Rather than stating the obvious, he gave the young profiler a chance to admit it himself. “Are you alright?”  
  
“Hm?” Reid had become engrossed with fiddling with the array of pens across his desk. “Oh, yeah, no, I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”  
  
“Yes, Hotch, I’m sure,” he snapped, completely unlike himself. 

Hotch tilted his head to the side and eyed Reid’s messenger bag. “Do you mind if I look through your bag?”  
  
“Yes!” Reid picked the bag up from the ground and clutched it to his chest. “Yes, I mind,” he added in a much softer voice.

“Why?”

“Stop profiling me.”

Sighing, the unit chief moved his chair closer. He pushed away the mess on the edge of the desk, and leaned his elbow onto it. He was done dancing around the issue.

“Do the drugs still get you high?”

Reid dropped the pen he was twirling around his fingers. He began to bounce his leg as he reached down to grab it, hands shaking the whole time. 

“I-I beg your pardon?”

Very calmly, Hotch repeated himself. Spencer seemed just as taken aback by the question the second time. He blinked harshly a few times, and wiped his palms on the top of his pants. 

“What are you-are you talking about?” His voice was shaky, and he stumbled over his words.

He was nervous. Hotch had struck a nerve.

“I mean, it’s very obvious you’re having a drug problem.” He held his hand out and began to tick his fingers as he listed off the reasons. “You’re snappy. You disappear periodically throughout the day. You’ve just undergone a traumatic experience. You very clearly have trouble focusing. You’re jittery.”

Reid pushed his hair behind his ears. 

“Need I go on?” Hotch blinked slowly and gauged the man’s response. 

“Those are all indicators of post-traumatic stress disorder. What makes you think I am doing drugs?”  
  
Hotch smiled grimly. That was more like the Reid he knew. “What are you using? Adderall? Something harder?”

The mop of brown hair flew around as he shook his head rapidly. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”  
  
“Reid…” Aaron trailed off, looking at the man with concerned eyes.

Spencer’s shoulders sagged, seemingly in defeat. “It’s not my fault, I didn’t mean to get addicted!”

“I know it isn’t. It’s never the victim’s fault,” Hotch said softly so as not to deter Reid from telling the story. “How did it start?”

“Back in that barn, Tobias- and it was Tobias- gave me some. Uh, he said it was to help me, that it made the beatings better. And it did. Then, um, when I shot him and I, uh, I asked you to let me stay back, I took the vials he had in his pocket.”

“Dilaudid?”

Reid’s face showed more years than he had lived as he answered quietly, “Yeah.”

“Is it to help the pain?” Hotch asked in an equally hushed voice.

“It was at first, yeah. I mean, it really started as most addictions do. Uh, you start to distract you from the world around you. It makes everything easier, you know? Well, no, you don’t know, but-”

“Reid,” Hotch stopped him, holding his hands up, “breathe.”  
  
“Breathe, right. Uh, yeah, it was a distraction at first. But then I had to have it. I think- I think I got used to the high? And then the flashbacks started, and I needed more. I just wanted to forget, Hotch. And it let me forget,” Reid stopped and looked away from the ground to the still droplet-covered windows. “I just wanted to forget.”

They sat in a saddened silence, the only sound being the rain falling from the sky and hitting the roof. Hotch was the first to break from the trance they had fallen into. 

“You’ve seen more horrors in your short years than almost everyone will see in their entire life. I don’t think wanting to forget is something anyone would blame you for. But using isn’t healthy, you know that.” Reid nodded. “We’ve both seen the effects that long-term drug use can do on a person’s mind. I’d hate to see what it would do to a mind as great as yours.”

They fell into silence once again, unspoken words hanging in the air like fog over a harbor.

The youth shined through Spencer as he asked, “Am I in trouble?”

“No, you are not in trouble.”

Reid sighed in relief and leaned back in his chair a little. His leg had stopped bouncing, and he could finally shift his gaze to meet the older profiler’s.

“You know that my office door is always open if you need to talk,” Hotch told him gently.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Is now one of those times?”

“Not really.”

Hotch didn’t press the matter. “Okay.” He held his hand out. “Now, let’s work on getting the real Spencer Reid back.”

Hotch could tell that Reid knew what the offered hand meant by the sloop in his shoulders. The younger man reached a shaky hand into the bag he was still clutching but paused before removing it. 

“Hotch, I don’t want the memories.”

A wave of sadness swept through Hotch at the question. “I think sometimes, memories are the worst torture. But I also think sometimes, they are the only cure.”

Reid frowned at the sentiment. “And how do I know which time this is?”

“You won’t until it happens. Is that a chance you are willing to take?”

Reid removed his hand from the bag, clutching three bottles with a clear liquid sloshing in them. “This has to work,” he said, his voice raspy. He sounded as if he were on the verge of tears as he continued. “This has to work because I don’t know what I will do if it doesn’t.”

Hotch pocketed the bottles and stood up from his chair. Spencer followed suit, wiping his hands on his thighs again.

“There’s a group I’m going to sign you up for, alright?” Hotch said, not unkindly.

Reid cleared his throat as he gathered his things. “What- what kind of group?”

“Drug support group. You’ll be surrounded by people who have and are experiencing the same thing you did and are.”

Pausing in his clean up, Reid looked to him inquisitively. “And what about Strauss? What happens when she gets wind of this? She already has me on thin ice because I failed the field exam.”

“I’ll deal with Strauss if it comes to that. I’ll be with you every step of the way. I’ll even go with you to the meetings so you know you aren’t alone, if that’s something you would like.”  
  
Reid swallowed harshly and gave Hotch a weak smile. “Yeah, I think- I think I would like that.”

“Okay,” Aaron responded softly and walked away from the desk.

As he grabbed on the railing that supported him on the stairs to his office, he paused. 

“Spencer?” he called.

“Yes?”

“You’re going to be okay. You know that, right?”

Giving him a lopsided smile, Reid told him, “I have never wanted to depend on people because I have always been afraid it will make me seem weak. But I think that I am learning that there is nothing wrong with asking for help sometimes.”

“Good.”


End file.
